David Shephard

Fragile Freedom
Exonerated by DNA after 11 years in jail, he works to help other prisoners

Story by BY KATIE WANG / Photos by SAED HINDASH

For months, after he was released from prison, David Shephard dutifully saved his ticket stubs every time he rode the bus.

The tiny slips of paper were his precious bread crumbs -- detailing the time and day he took the bus. They were an alibi in case he needed one. They made him feel somewhat safer, though not entirely.

But when his mother, Christine Shephard-Terry, discovered the box of ticket stubs stashed under his bed, she grabbed the box and led him to the backyard. There, she set the stubs on fire and said to her son, "Ain't nothing going to happen to you."

It took a long time for Shephard, 46, to truly believe that. In fact, 12 years after he walked out of prison, exonerated of a rape thanks to DNA evidence, Shephard still gets edgy if he is alone too long.

So he devotes his free time making sure other wrongfully convicted people like him are not alone when they are set free. Through his organization, the Northeast Council of the Wrongfully Convicted, Shephard, a Newark resident, doles out advice, shops for clothing and food and even arranges for shelter for newly freed prisoners.

His cell phone rings at all hours, with calls coming in from former prisoners who wish to talk, vent or seek counseling. After hanging up the phone, they feel better and so does he.

"I call him when I have a problem because he understands the situation," says Byron Halsey, a former factory worker who was cleared of rape and murder charges in Union County after serving 21 years in prison. "So many other people who have tried to help don't understand what it's like."

Right now, the fledgling group is based out of the Manhattan offices of the Innocence Project, a legal organization that re-examines cases by applying DNA evidence. Halsey wants to raise more money and expand the group beyond the northeast region of the country.

"David is a very strong, passionate, committed person who has amazing energy and drive to get things in place to make things better," says Vanessa Potkin, an attorney with the Innocence Project. "He wants to do whatever he can to change the system on a global level and also for individuals coming home."

Looking good
Things were going smoothly in Shephard's life before the arrest. In fact, as he put it, too smoothly.

It was 1983, he was 20 years old, engaged and holding a steady job directing planes landing at Newark Liberty International Airport. His fiancee, Erica, had just given birth to their son, Lemarr, and the couple was about to buy a three-bedroom house in Newark.

On the morning of Dec. 30, 1983, he went to the airport to pick up his paycheck. When he arrived, there were cops from Hillside Police and the Port Authority waiting to speak to him about a stolen car. Shephard, who had a clean record, agreed to go to the Hillside Police headquarters since he was confident it was a mistake.

But when he got there, it turned out they wanted to talk to him about something much more severe: a kidnapping and rape of a college student that had taken place on Christmas Eve.

Two men abducted the victim, a 21-year-old female, from Woodbridge Mall, drove her in her car to Hillside and repeatedly raped her. Her car was found behind the North Terminal of the airport and the victim testified one of the rapists referred to the other as, "Dave."

And so the twisted tale began.

The cops grilled him for hours.

"Where were you on the evening of Dec. 24, 1983?" they asked.

"At home babysitting," he replied.

"Who were you with?" they demanded.

"My baby sister, Nataly," he answered.

Again and again, they repeated the questions, picking apart his answers. He was thrown into a jail cell and then charged with the crime.

Even so, he was not scared. He knew he was innocent and certain he would be acquitted in court. His family stood by him and his sister, Nataly, who was 10 years old at the time, volunteered to testify.

He declined.

"I could see how afraid she was," he said. "I didn't want to drag her through this."

But after listening to the testimony, a jury convicted him in June 1984. His mother screamed after the jury foreman read the verdict. Shephard was shaking so hard that he had to sit down after he was escorted out of the courthouse.

A judge sentenced him to 30 years in prison. It might as well have been a death sentence.

At first he refused to accept any visitors at Garden State Reception and Youth Correctional Facility in Yardville, including his young son and his mother. He felt as if he let her down since he once promised her, "You will never have to visit me in jail."

When he finally relented, he kept his composure during his family visits, but teared up after they left.

"I never let them see me cry," said Shephard, a heavyset man with a gentle and welcoming demeanor. "I never let them see what I was going through."

He also kept other secrets from family. He spent his first four years in prison spinning in the vortex of drugs, violence and gambling. Things were so out of hand that he was forced to sit down with the prison psychiatrist, a man named James Bell.

"I know Shep you're not guilty of anything, but you're acting like you're guilty of something," Bell said to him.

You're not guilty.

Someone else -- besides his family -- believed in him. He needed to hear that.

Shephard shifted from one extreme to the other. He earned his high school diploma, worked in the law library and was elected president of the Young Long-Termers Association. He grew interested in the law after helping another inmate with his case about child support.

"I started looking up things, notes, law texts," he said.

By then it was the 1990s and a new tool in crime-solving had emerged: DNA evidence.

The genetic fingerprints were groundbreaking for their precision and hailed by some lawmakers as the crime-fighting breakthrough of the century.

This piqued Shephard's interest. One of the assailants in the rape he was charged with had wiped himself on a piece of tissue. That scrap, which authorities still had, could be his key out of prison.

Using his newfound legal knowledge, he started writing a motion, asking the courts
to reopen his case and examine the DNA left on the tissue. He mailed drafts of his motion to state inmates in Trenton and Rahway who edited and sharpened his arguments.

"There are some legal minds in there you can't believe," he said.

After rejecting his initial motion, a federal judge granted Shephard's second motion and a DNA test was conducted on him.

On April 28, 1995, with his fellow inmates clanging on their cell doors and yelling goodbye, Shephard walked out of prison a vindicated man.

Prison without bars
He was a free man, but he wasn't free at all.

He was afraid to leave the house that he and Erica shared, especially by himself. God knows what could happen to him again. He got lost, even if he was just a block away from his South Ward home. And those bus tickets -- they offered measured comfort, but not much.

His family had changed. His mother moved out of Newark and down to South Jersey, where she was taking care of a cancer-stricken Nataly. Both died within his first three years out of prison.

His son, Lemarr, was an infant when he went to prison. Now he was practically a teenager who wasn't used to having his father around. When Shephard disciplined him, he yelled loudly, but then later crawled into his bedroom to sleep next to his son.

One day he got a call from former Newark Mayor Sharpe James, who had seen Shephard on television.

"Do you want a job?" James asked, according to Shephard. The mayor invited Shephard to his office in City Hall.

"It was me in his office and the chief of personnel," Shephard said. "He said, 'You've been away for a long time. You have no skills. I'm gonna start you in maintenance and wherever you go from there is up to you'."

He worked for the city for five years and now works in the Essex County welfare department. In the meantime, he married Erica and the couple had another child, Ciarra. They also took in Nataly's daughter, Miechai.

He sued the state for mistakenly convicting him and, in 1998, they settled with him, offering $240,000. That was just enough to pay for the health care and burials of his mother and sister. Not to mention his lawyer.

"I think there's a lot more that Jersey can do," he says. "Who compensates my son for all the years he lost?"

Because of Shephard's case, the state has a law that pays someone who is wrongly convicted $20,000 for each year of imprisonment or twice the salary the year before the person was convicted.

Other states, such as Alabama and Texas, offer $50,000 a year. Montana offers free tuition at a state institution. The federal government offers $50,000 a year and $100,000 for death row cases.

Two years ago, Shephard was at a conference with Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, the founders of the Innocence Project when they came up with idea of a support group to ease the transition from prison by providing shelter, food, clothing and a job.

"I feel like the sooner a person can get back to normalcy, it's better for them," Shephard says.

Asked if he is normal, Shephard pauses.

"What is normal? Adjusting?" he says. "I've adjusted. I've come a long way. I still have these periods ... I think working with the guys really helps me."

The ticket stubs are gone, but there is still one important sheet of paper that Shephard has kept tucked away -- a judge's order clearing him of the rape and kidnapping charges.

"That slip of paper is in a very safe place," Shephard says. "It's never too far from me."

Additional insight:First place he went on vacation after he was released from prison: Myrtle Beach, S.C. Last book he read: "The Innocent Man" by John Grisham, but these days he's reading a lot of Hanna Montana to his 2-year-old granddaughter. His dream vacation: Africa What he does for fun: Coaches Pop Warner football